Friday, August 28, 2015

Smithsonian Favors Racist Eugenicist vs. Blacks

Curators at the Smithsonian Institution art and history museum are rejecting calls for the removal of a bust of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. Rather, the national historians say that the famous early 20th Century American eugenicist, who referred to the negro race as "human weeds" and "human waste," belongs in the museum's civil rights “Struggle for Justice” exhibit.

"We are paying for, even submitting to, the dictates of an ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all. . . . We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the [colored] minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."-- Margaret Sanger (writing to birth control advocate Dr. Clarence Gamble in 1939)

"The last thing we need is a white supremacist sitting between the bust of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. That is a slap in the face of black folks and I hope the curator can understand that."-- Rev. Johnny Hunter, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation

Conservative groups are calling on the National Portrait Gallery to remove of a bust of Margaret Sanger from the Washington, D.C. museum, the Associated Press reports. Sanger, who died in 1966, founded two groups that eventually became Planned Parenthood.

. . . a group of ministers lead by former Republican politician E.W. Jackson and the conservative non-profit ForAmerica say their opposition to the bust is based on Sanger’s support of eugenics, a social movement that sought to remove undesirable traits from the gene pool through sterilization and selective breeding.

. . . Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas have written a letter to lawmakers that calls the sculpture’s display by the museum “an affront both to basic human decency and the very meaning of justice.”

In a statement to TIME, Planned Parenthood acknowledged Sanger’s flaws, but dismissed the attacks as motivated by anti-abortion sentiment.

[Birth control advocate Margaret] Sanger, who died in 1966, also supported eugenics, a now-condemned effort to discourage reproduction by criminals and others with undesirable traits. Brent Bozell, chairman of the conservative group ForAmerica, and a group of black pastors say Sanger favored using eugenics to limit the population of blacks, a claim that some Republican lawmakers have echoed but for which the evidence is contested.

"She will not be removed," museum spokeswoman Bethany Bentley said Wednesday. She said the gallery displays "significant people who represent the full spectrum of the American experience," including some with "less than admirable characteristics."

A Planned Parenthood spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But the group's website describes Sanger as "one of the movement's great heroes." It says women's progress in education, jobs and politics "can be directly linked to Sanger's crusade and women's ability to control their own fertility."

Prominent black pastors and pro-life activists gathered in front of the National Portrait Gallery on Thursday to demand that the taxpayer-funded museum remove a bust of Planned Parenthood's white supremacist founder, Margaret Sanger, from the institution's "Struggle for Justice" exhibit.

Nearly 20 African-American pastors and pro-life advocates spoke at the rally and explained that Sanger, who established abortion organizations that eventually became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, did not advocate for abortion and birth control because she wanted to help "disadvantaged women," but because it was her goal to use eugenics to eliminate what she considered people of "inferior races."

In response to the letter sent by the coalition Ministers Taking a Stand earlier this month, National Portrait Gallery Director Kim Sajet replied with a letter stating that the gallery will keep the bust because Sanger brought "medical advice and affordable birth control to disadvantaged women."

“The woman was a racist. She was a genocidal figure in America and in human history, and to honor her is to be complicit in her evil and her racism,” [Bishop E.W.] Jackson said. “That’s right. If you are honoring Margaret Sanger, you are joining together with her in her racist ideology.”

Rev. Johnny Hunter of the Global Life and Family Mission in North Carolina, said it was a “slap in the face to black folks” to have Sanger as part of the “Struggle for Justice” exhibit.

“Her association with the eugenics movement shadowed her achievements in sex education and contraception, making her a figure of controversy, one whose complexities and contradictions mirror her times,” Director Kim Sajet told the pastors in an Aug. 19 letter.

“There is no ‘moral test’ for people to be accepted into the National Portrait Gallery,” said Sajet.

Sanger worked to bring birth control to Black families in the south, but recognized her ideas would be met with suspicion. According to Factcheck.org, an organization that verifies media statements made by elected officials, Sanger wrote about the importance of gaining support from a black clergyman.

Considering its origins, the Black community has long viewed the birth control movement with suspicion. Many Black people felt that early experiments with birth control pills used Black communities as test subjects. And up until recently, some states still practiced elements of eugenics with mentally challenged people and other undesirables being forcibly sterilized. An Atlanta Blackstar story reported several cases of Black female inmates in California being sterilized without their consent.

Today, anti-abortion activists say the high rate of abortion in the Black community carries elements of eugenics. According to figures from the Center for Disease Control, while Black people make up about 14 percent of the population, 40 percent of abortions are carried out by Black women.